Get ready for Hinkley blockade — 5th Stop New Nuclear newsletter

Wel­come to our fifth Stop New Nuclear newslet­ter. With lit­tle more than two weeks to go, we need to make a last effort to mobilise even more peo­ple to the block­ade of Hink­ley Point on 3 Octo­ber. More than 100 peo­ple have pledged to block­ade, and 150 to sup­port — can we reach the total of 300 pledgers with­in the next two weeks? Or even 400? Please help us to spread the infor­ma­tion, and ask your friends, fam­i­ly, col­leagues, … to pledge.

Since our last newslet­ter, we were able to wel­come CND Cym­ru as a new mem­ber of the Stop New Nuclear alliance, and we also received more organ­i­sa­tion­al pledges, among them Cum­bria and Lan­cashire CND, No Need for Nuclear, Stop Old­bury, and the French Sor­tir du Nucle­aire. This broad sup­port is impor­tant, as it shows the strength of our resis­tance against new nuclear pow­er sta­tions in Britain.

News about Hink­ley Point

We have been told that West Som­er­set Coun­cil and Elec­tricite de France (EDF) have now reached an agree­ment about the mon­ey to be paid by EDF (sec­tion 106 agreement),and this agree­ment will prob­a­bly go through the Coun­cil’s plan­ning com­mit­tee on 29 Sep­tem­ber. Once that hap­pened, EDF will have a green light to start with the pre­lim­i­nary works for Hink­ley Point C, even though it has not even applied to the Infra­struc­ture Plan­ning Com­mis­sion for the reac­tors them­selves.

How­ev­er, EDF is already late with the removal of asbestos from the site, which has been left over from the con­struc­tion of Hink­ley Point A. Accord­ing to the plan­ning con­di­tions, work should have been com­plet­ed by 31 August, but it is still con­tin­u­ing, and EDF is now apply­ing for an exten­sion until Feb­ru­ary 2012. Although EDF is in breach of the con­di­tions attached to its plan­ning per­mis­sion, Coun­ty Coun­cil plan­ners have decid­ed not to take any action. The Coun­cil is concerned,however, that if the work con­tin­ues into the win­ter months it could dis­turb migra­to­ry birds which fly along the coast past Hink­ley Point (see Stop Hink­ley press release, 14 Sep­tem­ber 2011).

The Envi­ron­ment Agency is present­ly con­sult­ing on two envi­ron­men­tal per­mit appli­ca­tions in rela­tion to Hink­ley Point C: make dis­pos­als and dis­charges of radioac­tive wastes oper­ate com­bus­tion process­es (stand­by gen­er­a­tors).

Objec­tions to both appli­ca­tions need to be in by 6 Octo­ber 2011.

More infor­ma­tion is avail­able on the web­site of the Envi­ron­ment Agency at http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/132474.aspx.

The Mar­coule nuclear plant in the south of France on Mon­day 12 Sep­tem­ber which killed one work­er and injured four oth­ers, high­light­ed again the dan­gers of nuclear pow­er. The plant, which is part­ly run by a sub­sidiary of EDF, stores large quan­ti­ties of radioac­tive waste and pro­duces mixed oxide (MOX) reac­tor fuel con­tain­ing plu­to­ni­um. There are also a num­ber of decom­mis­sioned reac­tors from the ear­ly years of the French nuclear pro­gramme.

Stop Hink­ley respond­ed with the fol­low­ing state­ment:

“The acci­dent in France is a sober­ing reminder of what can go wrong when a coun­try com­mits itself so heav­i­ly to nuclear pow­er, includ­ing all the prob­lems asso­ci­at­ed with han­dling radioac­tive waste. Yet we are now propos­ing to import French tech­nol­o­gy to Hink­ley Point and store waste there for 100 years or more. After Fukushi­ma in Japan this acci­dent serves as yet anoth­er trag­ic reminder of the dan­gers of nuclear pow­er and the urgent need for the UK gov­ern­ment to fol­low the lead tak­en by Ger­many in phas­ing it out.” (see http://stophinkley.org/Health/ExplosionSept2011.htm)

Train­ing

Sev­er­al Stop New Nuclear train­ings for the block­ade of Hink­ley Point took place in recent weeks — in Bris­tol, Swansea, Glas­ton­bury, Bridg­wa­ter, Comp­ton Dun­don, and today in Lon­don. Two more train­ings will take place:

Exeter, Sun­day, 25 Sep­tem­ber
A non-vio­lence train­ing for peo­ple from Exeter inter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Stop New Nuclear block­ade of Hink­ley Point on 3 Octo­ber will take place on Sun­day, 25 Sep­tem­ber 2011 from 1pm to 5.00pm.
Place: Uni­ver­si­ty of Exeter, Streatham Cam­pus, Amory Build­ing, Room 105
Con­tact: exeter [at] stopnewnuclear.org.uk

Leeds, Sun­day, 25 Sep­tem­ber
A non-vio­lence train­ing for peo­ple from York­shire inter­est­ed in
par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Stop New Nuclear block­ade of Hink­ley Point on 3 Octo­ber will take place on Sun­day, 25 Sep­tem­ber 2011 from 2.00pm to 6.00pm.
Place: Leeds Met­ro­pol­i­tan Uni­ver­si­ty — City Cam­pus, LS1 3HE, Calev­er­ley Build­ing, Room CL 309
Con­tact: York­shire CND, phone 01274 730 795, Email dominic [at] yorkshirecnd.org.uk

We will not able to organ­ise more train­ings in the two weeks before the block­ade, but for every­one who still wants to par­tic­i­pate in a train­ing, there will be sev­er­al train­ing ses­sions in the camp on the week­end before the block­ade:

Sat­ur­day, 1 Octo­ber, 7.30–10.30pm
Sun­day, 2 Octo­ber, 8.00–11.00am and 2.00–5.00pm

Legal observer/legal sup­port work­shop Sun­day 3.00–5.00pm

Please reg­is­ter if you want to take part in any of these work­shops at train­ing [at]stopnewnuclear.org.uk, espe­cial­ly if you do not want to stay in the camp. You can also reg­is­ter by call­ing our info num­ber 0845–2872381.

Reg­is­ter for the Stop New Nuclear camp!

We already have more than 45 peo­ple reg­is­tered for the Stop New Nuclear camp, which is about 4 miles from Hink­ley Point. The camp will be a space to pre­pare for the action (non-vio­lence train­ing and legal observ­er train­ing work­shops will take place in the camp on Sat­ur­day evening and Sun­day dur­ing the day), but also a place to meet oth­er activists, to share expe­ri­ence, and to make plans for the future.

Please note that the camp will be alco­hol and drug free, and that dogs are not allowed, as there are sheep near­by.

It is impor­tant that you reg­is­ter for the camp, so that we can plan food, but also so that we can send you the exact loca­tion and direc­tions how to get to the camp. Your can reg­is­ter on our web­site at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/register.

Demon­stra­tion in Bridg­wa­ter, 1 Octo­ber

Our week­end of actions will kick off with a demon­stra­tion in Bridg­wa­ter on 1 Octo­ber. We will have sev­er­al speak­ers, music, and pos­si­bly oth­er per­for­mances.

Assem­bly is from 1pm on at Kings Square in Bridg­wa­ter, next to the EDF offices. From there we will walk about 20–30 min­utes through Bridg­wa­ter and end the demon­stra­tion with a ral­ly at Corn­hill.

After the demon­stra­tion, a shut­tle ser­vice will be organ­ised to the Stop New Nuclear camp. There is also a local bus, and we will end in time for peo­ple to catch the local bus.

A map mark­ing the assem­bly point and the loca­tion of the ral­ly is
avail­able at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/node/48.

Trans­port and park­ing

On 3 Octo­ber, we will organ­ise trans­port from the camp to the block­ade, and back to the camp. But we will need your help! Let us know if you have spare seats in your car, or if you are will­ing to dri­ve a car/minibus. We still need dri­vers! Please con­tact us urgent­ly on cam­paign [at] stopnewnuclear.org.uk.

Trans­port is also being organ­ised from Glas­ton­bury (a coach will be leav­ing at 9am,to arrive at 10am), Bris­tol, and pos­si­bly from oth­er places. Please check out our trans­port sec­tion at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/transport, and use our trav­el forum to ask for and offer trans­port.

Park­ing will be avail­able about 200–300m from the main gate on Wicks Moor Drove, the main and only access road to Hink­ley Point. How­ev­er, this park­ing is not suit­able for coach­es. Coach­es will need to drop off their pas­sen­gers and park else­where.

We need your help

We need a lot of help to make the cam­paign a suc­cess. We need:
Dri­vers (30 Sep­tem­ber — 4 Octo­ber, trans­port to and from the camp, to and from the block­ade, and from police sta­tions).
1st aiders (for the camp and the block­ade)
mar­quees of any size — from 10–100 per­sons

Please con­tact us at cam­paign [at] stopnewnuclear.org.uk if you can help, or have any ques­tions.

Mobilise!

Two weeks to go. Two weeks to make this cam­paign and the block­ade a suc­cess. Please help us mobilise for the cam­paign. If you need fliers (see http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/node/10), please let us know, and we will send you some as long as stock lasts. And talk to your friends, neigh­bours, col­leagues and any­one you can think of to join you at the block­ade. We need to send a strong mes­sage to EDF and gov­ern­ment that we will resist nuclear new built in Britain, not only at Hink­ley, but every­where.

Donate

Stop New Nuclear is being organ­ised on a shoe string bud­get, and we need your dona­tions to make the block­ade a suc­cess. We need to hire minibus­es and oth­er trans­port for the block­ade, we need to set up infra­struc­ture for train­ings and work­shops in the camp, we need to print more fliers, and and and. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, all this costs mon­ey.

Accord­ing to our present cal­cu­la­tions, we will be about £1,300 short! Please help us to close this fund­ing short­fall urgent­ly.

Please give gen­er­ous­ly. You can donate online at
http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/donate, or you can send a cheque made payable to Stop­New Nuclear to:
Stop New Nuclear
c/o 5 Cale­don­ian Road
Lon­don N1 9DX
Thank you!

Stop New Nuclear
Stop New Nuclear is a cam­paign to stop new nuclear pow­er sta­tions and is an alliance of Cam­paign for Nuclear Dis­ar­ma­ment, Stop Nuclear Pow­er Net­work UK, Kick Nuclear, South West Against Nuclear, Shut­down Sizewell, Sizewell Block­aders, Tri­dent Ploughshares, and Stop Hink­ley

Email: campaign@stopnewnuclear.org.uk
Web: http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk